Talk Elections

The GOP took back the two rural districts and now holds a 4-3 advantage in the delegation for the 2011 session.  The Dems have Governor Hickenlooper and the State Senate, but the GOP took the State House (by 1 vote).  To make things even more contentious, they are probably due for a VRA Hispanic district after the 2010 Census.  What sort of map do you think they will agree upon?

My guess is they'll probably throw DeGette or Perlmutter under the bus to satisfy the VRA, and keep the status quo everywhere else.

VRA doesn't have to toss either DeGette or Perlmutter. Unlocking the Hispanic vote may actually help the Democrats, as it forces the split of Denver, and white Denver is as Democratic as Hispanic Denver.

Alternatively, they could try to get a GOP crossover vote to make CO-03 (Salazar's former district) the majority Hispanic district.  It would require some dealmaking, but it's certainly possible if the GOP is worried about Denver. 

Colorado isn't covered by the VRA.

All states are covered by section 2 of the VRA, they just are not subject to section 5 preclearance by the DOJ. If there has been a pattern of bloc voting by whites and Hispanics and there is a possible district with over 50% voting age population, then CO would have to make that district. However, it's not clear that it could be shown that there is bloc voting where Hispanics tend to prefer one candidate and the white majority prefers a different one.

I don't think that's even possible- I've tried it. There aren't as many Hispanics in that area as you might think.

1 and 7 have the largest minority populations, and are the most underpopulated.  So logically it makes sense to take the Arapahoe county portion of 1 out of the district, and replace it with the Adams County portion of 7.  Then take the Jeffco and Arapahoe portions of 7 combined with 6 add in the upper Arkansas (Lake, Chaffee, Fremont), and split into two districts.  Move all of the lower Arkansas Valley into 3, and shift Pitkin to 2.

I C. Thanks for the correction. Still, Colorado is quite different from the South, and it's questionable whether one could show that Hispanics and whites in areas with more Hispanics would vote differently enough to create separate districts.

Is it even possible to create a majority Hispanic Denver district? I went into Weld county and still got stuck in the 40s.

Well, you do have to go into Weld County, and be rather selective of what precincts you put in, but it is possible. The district in the picture below is 51.14% Hispanic, and I'm certain there's room for improvement.

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I posted a similar district sometime ago. In IL the Hispanic voting age population percent in a district is considerably smaller than the overall population percentage. It may be the case that the VAP doesn't support a Hispanic district once the census is released.

http://www.coloradopols.com/diary/14455/dems-colorado-house-remains-in-play

The Dems might actually keep the State House. Unlikely, but possible.

Whistling past the grave.  Ramirez (R) did better in the election day voting than by mail.  And the provisional ballots are probably by-mail voters who have to vote provisional if they vote at the polls.  At least some will have voted by mail, but panicked that their ballot had not been received.

Benefield would need 65% of the outstanding ballots to go her way.  The percentage increases for each ballot that doesn't count.

Democrats are probably trying to get some late contribution $$$ to make up for their overspending before the election.

Since the Democrats are calling for a hand count of all the ballots in HD 61, they may have probable belief that they have lost that as well.

With some adjustments, I could bring the Denver Hispanic districts to 52.10% Hispanic. I am not sure, but I'd think 53% shouldn't be entirely impossible. More than that, though, would seem difficult.

I actually have drawn such a map for Minnesota.

I think this Skill and Chance guy really doesn't understand the VRA (he's proven that in the previous posts too.) Colorado has no DOJ preclearance, so the only way it could end up with a requirement for a Hispanic majority drawn seat is for all the following to happen:

1-A map is drawn without a seat.
2-Some Hispanic advocacy group brings a lawsuit against a likely Democratic-drawn and Democratic-governor approved map.
3-A court rules that the Hispanic population of Colorado is "entitled" to such a seat and that the Hispanic populations' voting patterns are so different from the rest of the population that they can't be accurately represented in a non-Hispanic majority district. That's a tough sell in Denver.

Not likely. Now the second myth here is that drawing such a seat would hurt any incumbent Democrats. Drawing majority-minority seats only hurts the Democrats if the minorities are solidly Democratic and the white vote is solidly Republican. Since this is obviously true in the south where most such seats are, some people get the idea that's the case everywhere, but you are not throwing any Democrat under the bus by taking Hispanic areas out of their district and replacing them with white Denver liberals. It's not like the racially gerrymandered seats in New York City have resulted in any Republicans getting elected for example.

This is quite true. In my experience drawing Colorado maps with a Hispanic-majority district, it seems like such a map would actually benefit the Democrats, because of the split in Denver. Perlmutter can be shored up by removing the exurban parts of his district in favor of the white part of Denver. The same principle can be applied to weaken Coffman.

Except for at the NYS Senate level, I would agree. Racial gerrymanders help Republicans at the state level significantly however.

I am reading that the legislative leaders have reached some sort of agreement (http://www.examiner.com/political-buzz-in-denver/colorado-redistricting-takes-center-stage-for-2011-general-assembly) to create a bipartisan committee. There is a recognition that if there is no agreement the court will intervene, and as CO learned in the last cycle, the legislature cannot have a mid-decade remap after a court-drawn one. The impact of the governor elect's statement on competitiveness is also interesting, and it remains to be seen if he insists on that as part of any bill he signs.

The addition of a new district in 2002 had ambitious legislators salivating.  In states that have relatively few districts, and where the number doesn't change much from election to election ordinarily don't have the opportunity or reason to propose a radical redraw.

Adding a 7th district requires a pretty radical redraw.  The least disruptive map would take 1/7 of the territory of the other 6 districts.  It is pretty unlikely that an agglomeration of fringe areas of the other districts will form an identifiable core.

The reason that the legislature failed to draw a plan in 2001 was that the Democratic senate wanted to split Denver, and refused to appoint conference committee members, because they realized that a more reasonable plan would have picked off individual members.  Most all of the senator leaders of that time, including Perlmutter, have gone on to seek higher office.

When redistricting got to the district court, the Democrats submitted the senate plan, and the judge threw it out as a non-starter because it split Denver.  He then took the Republican plan and let the Democrats tinker with it and that was the court's final plan.  The judge then went through an explanation and defined a theme for each of the districts.  When he got to the 7th, he admitted that there was none, but that at least the district would be competitive.

Had the legislature known that the Supreme Court would make a partisan decision that a local district court is a branch of the legislature, the boundaries would probably ended up being drawn by the Supreme Court or the legislature.

Hickenlooper as a former mayor of Denver who styles himself as an outsider rather than a political hack probably would veto a plan that split Denver.

If true, that would eliminate the possibility of a Hispanic-majority district, assuming that the census data supports one. Such a district relies on a Denver split, and based on the discussion in the thread it's not clear which party, if either, would benefit. However, if it isn't forced by the VRA, then a veto threat would take it off the table.

I think it would be difficult to force such a plan under the VRA, since that requires evidence that the majority votes against Hispanic candidates when there is a non-Hispanic choice. Given the success of the Salazars in the state, there would have to be specific instances of bloc voting in the Denver area to justify a mandated district.

There's also some doubt as to whether a Hispanic-majority district could exist. The best I've done with Dave's App is 51.8%, and Hispanic VAP is usually 6-8% less than in the population as a whole. In that case the best district for the Hispanic population would be a 40-45% influence district, but those are not mandated and would also require a Denver split. So I assume Hickenlooper would take that off the table as well.

Plus the real number for minority candidate success is adult citizens, not VAP, and as we all know a disproportionate number of Hispanics are not citizens. But under the VRA, Justice Kennedy said only VAP counts, and is only triggered at 50% plus one, when it comes to having to draw a majority-minority CD if it ties together communities of interest, assuming there is indeed a block voting pattern.

Here's a map of Colorado, designed to return one of the two seats lost this year to the Democrats while making everyone else safe (although CO-03 is not so Democratic that its current incumbent would have to simply surrender). Seems like what the Democrats would probably do.

CO-04 is contiguous across Cameron Pass between Larimer and Jackson Counties. This should not be controversial. Cameron Pass is in fact easier and more often open in winter than the very difficult Berthoud Pass between Clear Creek and Grand Counties that is the only route connecting the two parts of CO-02 on the current map.

The map also minimizes county splits.


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It would of course be highly controversial anyways.

It would be if the current Rep for CO-03 lived in Grand Junction. He doesn't, though, he lives in Cortez. So he'd be annoyed about having his seat become very vulnerable, but the Mormons would probably prefer being with the eastern plains than with the ski bunnies and Hispanics, anyway, since it guarantees them a Republican representative.

Realized Perlmutter lives in Golden, though. WTF, move. That means Jefferson County has to have even nastier splits.

Boulder to Vail 108 miles, 2H 2M via Vail Pass.

Fort Collins to Steamboat, 157 miles 3H 31M (73% longer) over both Cameron and Rabbit Ears passes.

Even if you insist that the route stay within CD-2 (via Nederland up Boulder Canyon and the Peak-to-Peak Highway) it is only 114 miles and 2H 32M.

I don't see what Berthoud Pass has to do with anything.

And your circuitous connection from Springfield to Montrose is 750 miles and 13-1/2 hours.  This is double the distance and time of a direct route instead over Monarch Pass and almost the entire route on US 50.

Even if you were only talking about Fort Collins to Grand Junction, you would drive through Denver and save 2 hours rather than using Cameron Pass. 

Nonsense.  I explained how to avoid going through CO-06 to get from Boulder to Vail.  Vail Pass is too in CD 2.  And it is way shorter and quicker than Fort Collins to Steamboat over two three mountain passes.  You do realize that Cameron Pass does not cross the Continental Divide don't you, and then you have to go over both Muddy and Rabbit Ears passes.

And please explain what Berthoud Pass has to do with anything.  If Jared Polis wanted to go from Boulder to Granby, wouldn't he take the train?  The bus from Boulder stops at Union Station.

And if I wanted to drive from Fort Collins to Grand Junction, I'd go through Denver (or at least to I-76).

Will the new seat in Colorado benefit Republicans or Democrats?

Colorado isn't gaining a seat.

Why not include all of Jefferson county with CD-6? Will that make any difference? What if you added Pueblo with CD-5 or CD-4?

CO-03 needs extra population somewhere; that's why it expands into Jefferson County. If the actual Census numbers allow it to stay out of Jefferson, that would be great.

Here's my map
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Districts need to be of equal populations. Your CO-05 and CO-06 are way oversized while CO-03 is way undersized.

And with it all the districts. It's going to be pretty much just Jefferson County, which completly levels the playing field. Apparently Araphaoe is going into CD-1 (dem anyway) and I'd guess Adams will go into Cory Gardner's 4th district.

This will redraw the district to be a third of each party, as it was originally drawn to be. I'm so excited that we can have an actual competitive election, granted we find a good candidate. And the GOP runnerup to Frazier, Lang Sias is not going to stand a chance against perlmutter, even in a fair district.

Might this make CD-6 a bit more competitive? Though I guess it doesn't matter? I should redistrict Colorado soon...

And what is your source on this?

Why in the world would the Dems in the legislature agree to this?

What will happen to the second, third and sixth as a result of these changes?

I'm curious what your source is--it's too early for any kind of plan--and how the numbers add up. Jefferson County is 200,000 short of a district, where are the rest coming from? Similarly, Denver + Arapahoe are well over a million people. Putting Adams County into the 4th district is more like putting the 4th district into Adams County; it would have half the district's population.

Adams County + Larimer= lean Democratic.

Source?  Also, the Colorado Democratic party doesn't strike me as being the sort of weak, incompetent state party that would agree to this (unlike the South Carolina or Mississippi Democratic parties).

The Democrats have no reason to agree with that, since they have 2 out 3 of the trifecta. The map will be a compromise.

The Republicans should focus on securing CO-3 and 4 before dreaming about the 7th.

My first attempt; minimal changes.

I basically pulled CD-4 out of Boulder County, gave CD-7 what I thought were some Dem territories, and left CD-3 the same.

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Yes, I think you pretty much nailed it. At least in the Denver area.

Part of the problem I had with this is that nobody wants to be attached to the Denver district and be ~100k forgotten residents. Once you figure out who the unlucky souls are the rest of the map is fairly obvious.

The fourth is secure, just not idiot proof. And I think drawing an R+10 or greater (minimum to be idiot proof) is not only impossible, but a waste.


I would be more worried about the third and sixth then the third and fourth.

It looks like some of the map will be predicated on how to enhance minority opportunities (http://coloradoindependent.com/77095/colorado-minority-groups-look-for-greater-representation-in-redistricting) while keeping Denver intact.

My look at the 2010 data on Dave's App leads to believe that a compact district with over 50% Hispanic VAP is not possible at the precinct level. I get only to within about 140K of the right size before running out of precincts. I suspect that one can do somewhat better at the block level, but it seems unlikely that even that would be enough to get to a full Hispanic-majority district.

That should clear the way for Denver to remain intact as the core of CO-1.

The committee in charge of redistricting that said it at the jefferson county hearing

That's why giving North West Aurora to them is the best choice. They are resonably dem

Yeah best choice for the pubbies for sure. Or just join it with certain areas of Adams County. Of course the Dems are going to want to expand south.

And fairly minority too.  I assume that counts for something since Colorado still doesn't have a VRA district

Doesn't legally count for anything, since no minority in Colorado passes the Gingles threshold. Not that it won't be considered by the mapmakers, though, if they want to do it for community of interest reasons or what-not.

Yep. Colorado is one state where I'd hope that both sides could come to an agreement; a 3-3-1 plan seems quite reasonable given the last decade of electoral history.

Actually I think it will be quite similar to the current map. Marginally 4-3 Republican.

Democrats trying to cram CD-5 and CD-6 together. Republicans basically keeping the current map.

http://coloradopols.com/diary/15532/redistricting-dday

Compromise map proposed by the Dems. (http://www.coloradopols.com/diary/15645/democrats-unveil-colorado-compromise-redistricting-map)

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Appears to make both CO-06 and CO-07 more competitive.

How much of CO-2 is in the Front Range south of Boulder? Is that area populated enough to make the district swingy?

Given how liberal Boulder is, probably not.

This is the equivalent 'compromise' GOP map. I believe it is quite a bit closer to the current map.

Permutter's residence kind of stinks here. Adams probably belongs with Arapahoe while Douglas belongs with Jefferson. Boulder County/2nd district is obviously the problem point between the maps.

The 3rd, 5th, 1st, and 4th look very similar between both maps. The GOP is trying to cede 2 and 7 while claiming 6, while the Democrats seem to want all 3.

http://coloradopols.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=15639

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I think that makes the 7th even more Republican than what the Democrats proposed, which was more Republican than the current district.

Yeah, sticking all of Jefferson County into the 7th while taking out Aurora would make it more Republican.

Especially since you're putting most of Douglas county into CO-2, which means that under that map I think CO-7 is actually more Republican than CO-6.  Kind of a weird choice if you ask me.

Good point. I just eyeballed it, saw that it had a bunch of Adams, and wrote it off, but I guess on the GOP map the areas around Boulder are cut out.

I'm honestly surprised they don't just shore up the 4th and 7th and call it a day. On the Dem map it looks like you can draw a very small line through 4 districts right near Highlands Ranch.

Given the split in the legislature, it seems inevitable that the map will be drawn by the courts (who presumably will try to maintain the current map as much as possible, since I'm pretty sure they drew the last one), so this is really just posturing.

On the other hand, the Democrats control the Colorado State Supreme Court... :)

Given that the Colorado Supreme court has now misinterpreted the state constitution, a court will be unlikely to step in until the last possible opportunity.  So a court won't step in until next Spring.

And so here we are in July...and we have nothing to show for redistricting :(

2012 congressional races are going to be a mess

The current 6th district has south Jefferson County (which is very Republican) grouped with Douglas County (also very Republican), but not the northern part of Jefferson, which is more marginal/trending Democratic these days.

I don't think all of Jefferson County belongs in the same district, personally.

Here's what I think makes most sense from a court/neutral perspective:

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First issue is what to do with the Denver district, which must expand.  Currently the only parts outside Denver it contains are to the south, between Denver's two legs.  If the goal is geographic compactness, then it doesn't make sense to add a protrusion into Littleton, not to mention that Littleton doesn't really belong.  Given Denver's arm to the northeast, the most logical thing to do would be either to add parts of Aurora or the suburbs to the north.  Splitting Aurora probably won't make anyone happy, so I went north.  

After that, I cleaned up the boundaries between the Denver suburban districts.  There's no reason for the 7th to take in parts of all three counties (Adams, Arapahoe, Jefferson) so I limited it to the first two.  The two eastern tails of Adams and Arapahoe belong together so that's why I gave them both to the 7th.  CD-02 no longer enters ArapahoeAdams or Weld.  Instead, I gave it more of Jefferson.  It really doesn't make sense to have the western half of CD-02 be ski areas but not include Aspen, so I tossed that in CD-02 as well.  

After that the map basically draws itself.  Longmont's desire to be paired with Fort Collins is kept (for the most part) and so there are basically minimal changes needed elsewhere.  

Not counting parts attached to the Denver district, ArapahoeAdams is now in one piece (compared to two previously), Jefferson is in two pieces (three previously) and AdamsArapahoe in two (like before).  Weld County is now intact.  It's rather elegant, if I say so myself.

Democrats will not like it much, though.  Districts 3 and 4 are at 56 and 57% Republican, so they'll still be at least lean R, but District 7 is down to 50.5% Democratic.  CD-4 is currently at 57% so that's no change (it loses some plains counties but gains SW Weld, which is fairly red as well), CD-3 is up from 54.7% (it has to gain population and there's not really any non-red areas to grab if you keep the ski resorts in CD-2), CD-7 is down from 52.2% Democrat.  

NB: Colorado as a whole is 52.7% Republican, according to DRA, but voted 53.5% Obama.  So given the trends, CD-7 is probably still D+2 or 3.  

ETA: I seem to have drawn Coffman (Aurora) and Perlmutter (Golden) out of their districts.  I'm guessing a court won't care.  Surely if any Denver suburb belongs with Boulder and the mountain slopes, it's Golden...

It doesn't make sense to split the mountain counties, Garfield, Grand, Chaffee.

So instead have CD-4 come down in the lower Arkansas, let CO-7 go up into Weld County which is commuter suburbs.  There is no justification for a 3-way split of Arapahoe County, so CO-1 should switch entirely to the north (and Holly Hills and Glendale decreed to be contiguous and placed in CD-7).

This makes CD-7 more of an Aurora/east metro district like it should be.

Very GOP favored. And Coffman lives in Highlands Ranch now, so you can't really drawn him out of his district.

Some splits are necessary for population equality.  I could give the rest of Grand to CD-3 and give CD-2 more of Garfield to get rid of one of them, I suppose.  

For the Denver district, I just kept its current territory (which happened to be on the Arapahoe side) and then added what made most geographic sense (which happened to be on the Adams side).  Incidentally I realize now that I got these two names mixed up in my previous post. 

@krazen: I wasn't trying, honest!  

If you are going to convince a court to reduce the number of split counties, there is no reason to 3-way split Arapahoe Count, just because it already is.

When it comes to splits for the court, I'm not sure that keeping Denver intact should have any special preference.

Consider that the four big counties Adams, Arapahoe, Denver, and Jefferson are all between 60% and 85% of a CD, so none are substantially larger all smaller than the others. Next, consider that the four counties together are just barely less than the population needed for 3 CDs - in fact at 99.67% of the total they could fall within the 0.5% limit that the court has permitted when a state makes a compelling case to have some population deviation. Otherwise a small amount of population from either Bloomfield or Douglas would make up the difference.

If the big four are to make up 3 CDs, then either one county must be split three ways, or two counties must be each split two ways. I'll assume the goal is to have no county split between more than two districts, since that appears in the GOP plan, and The Dems only show a three-way split of Jefferson for connectivity between Park and Douglas.

If Denver is intact then Arapahoe must be split, since discontiguous parts are surrounded by Denver. If Denver combines with parts of Arapahoe, the natural combination of the remainder is with Adams which becomes the other split county.

A majority HVAP district is not possible at the precinct-level, and probably not at the block level without long tendrils up and down the Front Range. However, a strong influence district is possible, and even if not required it might be a desirable goal given the large Hispanic population in the state. If one is created, Denver must be a part of it. If the Arapahoe inclusions are ignored for the purposes of counting splits, and Denver is kept intact, the best HVAP comes from a combination of Denver and parts of Adams. That would be about 30% HVAP.

So, why not recognize that Denver is no more special than the other big counties, and could be split. If Adams is kept intact, and combined with the most Hispanic areas of Denver a district with a 39% HVAP can be achieved. That would be a substantially better influence district than what could be made by keeping Denver intact. The remainder of Denver would then combine with Aurora and most of Arapahoe, leaving some southwestern parts of Arapahoe to combine with Jefferson.

Muon, the problem with that seems to be that Douglas County gets stranded in between the 3 Denver districts that you've drawn and the Colorado Springs district and has nowhere to go.  There's really no reason to draw a stark dividing line between Denver/Adams/Arapahoe/Jefferson and Douglas just because the first four happen to add up to 3 districts. 

There are historical reasons (Denver had its own congressional district for close to 70 years, and has basically had its own for the past 40 more).  The city and county of Denver are coterminous, which would mean that a split of Denver County would split Denver city.  At the legislative level, integrity of cities is a requirement.

In 2001, the two houses of the legislature deadlocked, and the Democratic-controlled senate refused to even send conferees because they realized that there was a risk that a reasonable person would see the House plan and vote for it.  The Democrats filed in district court in Denver figuring they would get a favorable judge.  They submitted their plan, which would have divided Denver.  The judge threw it in the trash can, and took the Republican plan, and then let the Democrats redraw District 7.  The judge then went into detail about the community of interest that the other districts represented.  When he got to 7, he couldn't think of anything (they do both include a portion of Colfax) but said it was politically balanced.  He was as surprised as anyone that it was the final map.

So given past history and the fact that you would be splitting a city it is quite unlikely a court would order a split, or treat the other counties as equivalent.

I don't think that Glendale and Holly Hills should be treated as splits of Arapahoe County.  I would keep them with Arapahoe County, but a judge probably would simply treat them as part of Denver.

Can you keep Aurora, Lakewood, and Denver whole, and draw 3 districts in the 4-county area?

With the four-county grouping I described, there are really only two choices. Douglas can go with the city of Colorado Springs, while the rest of El Paso goes with eastern CO. Otherwise Douglas can go with eastern CO.

It is interesting to note that if one puts Boulder and Larimer counties together one can get some interesting plans. For instance that combination along with the Douglas + Colorado Springs district allows CD 3 to stay entirely in the west without needing Pueblo. Alternatively one can construct a whole counties (except the big four) plan that stays within 0.5%.

Below is my projected court drawn plan.  I expanded Denver out in the direction that maxed the Hispanic percentage while respecting jurisdictional boundaries, grabbing most of the Hispanic concentration that was there, but giving up a couple of points or three to avoid splitting Aurora and such. I tried to keep CO-04 on the plains without cutting into Pueblo County, and then the rest sort of drew itself. I don't think a judge will trash other considerations to up the Hispanic percentage when it won't make much difference in any conceivable outcome anyway, and I find it striking that the Hispanics are so spread out. They seem to refuse to "ghettoize" themselves in Colorado, and that tells the tale. CO-07 being dead even was an accident. I didn't even look at the partisan percentages until the map was done.

It is not all that different from dpmapper's I see in looking back now. I just didn't want to cut into the mountains in exchange for the parts of Arapahoe and Adams to the east that are identical to the surrounding territory in CO-04 that is identical, particularly given that both counties are so elongated. So I chopped them, and I suspect a court will do to pick up the relatively small amount of population. 4 of the 7 CD's become metro Denver CD's more or less, with the emphasis on more - as they should. Other than that, both of us have the same approach basically.

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Here are the two maps I mentioned yesterday. Both are based on dividing the big four counties into three CDs and making CD 7 a Hispanic influence district at 39%. Both plans could easily swap the Denver split for an Adams split.


This plan keeps all counties except Denver and Arapahoe intact and has a maximum deviation of 0.5%.

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This plan has a maximum deviation of 9 persons (pretty good for precinct-level manipulation). It minimizes county splits and no county is split between more than two districts. It unites all the counties west of the Rockies as CD3, leaving Pueblo to the east (as is should be). That puts Boulder and Larimer together as well as Douglas with Colorado Springs.

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Those maps are a pretty radical re-shifting of the deck chairs, Muon2. Do you really think Judge Hoyer will go there?  By the way, he apparently is a highly respected judge and not a hack, which is good.

On a minor note, there is absolutely no road access between Park and Pitkin Counties, which is why I abandoned an earlier draft that appended the two counties together in the Colorado Springs CD. Where I had to reach into the mountains, I hunted around for the few available roads. Judges seem to like roads. :)

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And here is an alternative, that chops Aurora to take in a nice little square of majority Hispanic precincts, and appends a majority precinct in the south that juts into Denver, dumps into CO-07 the Denver jut out to take in the airport, and nibbles off a couple of relatively low percentage precincts in the north, upping the Hispanic percentage in the Denver CD by 1.1%, up to 30.7%.  I wouldn't break municipal and county lines to get this additional Hispanic percentage, but a judge certainly might reasonably do so.  It increases the Dem percentage in CO-07 by 30 basis points, up to 50.3-47.7% Dem as it turns out. This approach probably dictates that the lines of CO-07 and CO-04 be moved around a bit, which should not make much difference. We are not talking about many people here.

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And here is the rejigging of the CO-04 and CO-07 border: 50.4% Dem now for CO-07. Drip, drip, drip. :P

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I particularly liked my second map. From a non-partisan perspective, I don't understand linking Boulder with the ski counties across the Front Range. I own in Vail and have been in Vail and Aspen and surrounding areas many times. Other than the pockets of Dems in the ski towns, I find little in common between them and Boulder.

So I thought, the better community of interest was to hold the Front Range as a line. That way I could link all the counties west of that line with a slight spill into Huerfano for population equality. Pueblo is a city of the high Plains, not the mountains so I kept it there.

And I should know better having taken my 4WD vehicle up into the mining camps east of Leadville. In any case you can swap Lake and Clear Creek and remain within 0.5% of the ideal population. :P


After all the noise about keeping Denver whole, you've split the airport and neighboring areas of the city out of CD 1. If you are going to split that, why not go all the way and split Denver as I did?

http://www.colomar.com/ColoradoPlaces/mosquito_pass.html

It would also unite the burro racing community.

Well the rationale is that the bit of Denver chopped is a jut because of the new airport, and has some empty land in-between, so if one is hyped up about upping the Hispanic percentage, and given the 8 Hispanic majority precincts in that little square in Aurora right next to Denver, that seemed like something a judge might do. I wouldn't, but Hoyer might. Sure you protected the mountains, but at the cost of shifting Pueblo out of CO-03 which is a big population transfer (and thus a negative - see below). Indeed, given the number of mountain counties that you appended to CO-03, that adds another 70,000 folks or so transferred. Anyway, Highway 80 links Boulder to the nearby ski resorts, and folks in Boulder ski a lot, and that is the way the lines are drawn now. I saw no reason to change them. I did cut back a bit the reach of the Boulder CD into the mountains as it happened. However, it may have some appeal for a judge because it does unite the mountains and the plains, provided it does not otherwise screw up the map.

Moving massive numbers of folks around is a negative to me, and should be to a judge. There needs to be a darn good reason to do it. I did move around a fair amount of folks in Jefferson County, but that is because by moving the Denver CD north to up its Hispanic percentage, that sliced CO-07 in two. So I decided it was time to clean up the map, given that. Bear in mind that the last map was judge drawn, rather than some offensive gerry to protect incumbents or favor one party, so that map will probably get some deference from Hoyer.

Addendum: Oh, I see that we seem to be using different population data. Not good!   Or am I just missing something (always a real possibility with me :P )?

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There's a substantial neighborhood of over 28K people that you chopped out with the airport. It's also a very diverse neighborhood with roughly equal numbers of whites, blacks and Latinos.

I understand that the connection exists today, but I can't find a rational basis to maintain it other than Pueblo is currently in CD 3 and constituent services would be disrupted by a shift.

Where the folks in Boulder ski shouldn't matter since they don't permanently reside or vote there. There's not even a road connection from Boulder County west over the mountains, so I don't see why a judge thought they should be connected other than politics and historical precedent. The current district only connects Boulder to the I70 pass over rugged terrain through tiny Gilpin County.

I just checked my CD 3 again with a blank map and I got my previous result, the net should be -9 people compared to ideal. Unless you have little discontiguous areas that didn't get included in your CD 3, I'm not sure what causes the difference you see.

My CO-03 is contiguous. So the software tells me, as well as my eye. I think you are using an earlier version of the DRA, and it must have different population numbers. That is the only explanation I can think of.

Yes, that little node I cut out of Denver (22,000 per my software even if 28,000 in yours). First, it probably wasn't in Denver until the airport was built, is separated by empty fields from the balance of Denver and in any event is part of "the jut," is "only" 33% Hispanic, and fattens out the little waist of CO-07 going from north to south to the east of Denver, and I had to cut Denver somewhere to pick up those eight Aurora precincts.  So out it goes!  If I am going to cross jurisdictional boundaries to pick up a point or two of Hispanics that to me doesn't make much if any practical difference, I want the CD to be at least as compact as it was before, it not more so in general.

The Boulder CD is connected to the ski resorts by Highway 80 via its southern precincts, if not by Boulder County itself. That is good enough for me. You are so fussy Muon2.  :)

I agree with you about Pueblo, but it was "necessary" as a population equalizer.  But surprisingly, having now done the exercise per your inspiration, if you strip the mountains from the Denver based CD's, CO-03 even with my population numbers does not jut too far out into the plains after losing Pueblo, so that change has some merit if the balance of the map holds reasonably well, and you don't mind the population switches to better bifurcate the mountains from the plains. I don't myself think that is a major objective, but nevertheless has some attraction if the price for doing so is not too high. That much of a population switch might however be a deal killer, unless there is evidence that the folks of Pueblo (or their politicians at least - the folks probably could care less), want the F out of CO-03.

I checked my numbers by downloading the county counts directly from the Census into a spreadsheet. If I take the counties in my map's CD 3 without Huerfano I get 714,345. If I put Huerfano in I get 721,056. That's consistent with my map where I get 718,448 with half of Huerfano.

You say you checked contiguity for CD 3, but did you check it for the other CDs? I have found that a fragment of an old CD on a tiny parcel can be missed sometimes.

Given the shape of Adams and Arapahoe I didn't worry about compactness so much in my equal population map. However, in my whole county version I chose to make CD 1 compact as the non-Hispanic district and let the 39% HVAP CD 7 extend east. It would be straightforward to adopt that design onto my equal population map as well. My sense is that if one Denver district is going to be compact, it shouldn't matter which one it is.

I like a clean community of interest. ;)

Having done the contiguous check thing for all CD's, again and again, we are very close now - down to a couple of thousand folks maybe, if that. I actually do that for my final serious maps, but well, whatever. You're pretty clever Muon2.  :)

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Actually, by this - an 842 population difference:

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I find it somewhat amusing that y'all are spending at least 20 times the amount of time a judge/court is going to spend drawing a map.  Seriously.  They look for the easiest solution that's not going to get struck down and move on (which generally revolves around making the most minor changes possible to the old map).  Unless they're partisans.

Maybe, but one never knows with a state judge. But in this case, I suspect you're right, and thus I think the first map I suggested is about right, which throws the Hispanics a bone while respecting jurisdictional lines (and thus a good reason not to give them more where such is not the case), but other than that, tries to minimize changes. Denver needs to expand out anyway to pick up population, so why not get rid of its existing extension into the Southern burbs (which did not make sense anyway), and then expand it out north to Hispanic areas which are just hanging there like rip fruit to pick up.

There's an 842 person precinct in Walsenburg. That's the difference here.

It really should be considered an extension of Montbello, which is the area between the old airport and the road to the new airport.  If you are going to include the SW and SE extensions of Denver, there is no reason to chop that off.

When Colorado created 4 congressional districts (it never had 3), CO-4 was created on the Western Slope, CO-1 was Denver, CO-2 was northern Colorado (it was always a doughnut), and CO-3 was southern Colorado, which included Pueblo, El Paso, the lower Arkansas, the upper Arkansas, the San Luis Valley and the headwaters of the Rio Grande.

You're seeing the front range as the natural dividing line rather than the Continental Divide.

CO-4 was created underpopulated, and by the time OMOV came around, it was severely so.  CO-1 and CO-3 were about right, and CO-2 which had grown because of the suburbs, was overpopulated.  So they added CO-4 to CO-3, and dropped Colorado Springs and some of the High Plains.

Maybe you should create a southern Colorado district Holly-Pueblo-Leadville-Gunnison-Grand Junction, and put NW Colorado with Boulder.

There is passenger rail service though.  And Trail Ridge is accessed from Lyons which is in Boulder County.   Lake Eldora is near Boulder.

Interesting ... and it explains how Pueblo and Grand Junction got united. How did Boulder end up linking across the Divide?

Aren't the southern and eastern areas of Denver similar to the areas south of it, if we disregard partisanship? If you want to make a Hispanic influence district, add in extreme eastern Jefferson County into the mix as well.

Your map seems to be much more favorable to Republicans while at the same time not picking up Hispanic areas in Jefferson County. I don't see why a "fair" judge would do that. Though that would depend on the definition of fair, wouldn't it? :)

30% VAP Hispanic. I can only imagine what the CVAP numbers are (and yes in Denver most of them are immigrants as opposed to Southern and Western Colorado).

I picked up most of the available Hispanics within reach sbane. The problem is that they are so spread out. There are few really heavy Hispanic precincts. To do what I did, I had to lose the southern burbs, which are low percentage Hispanic. They were put into CO-06 which is GOP anyway, and did not affect CO-07. That allowed me to pick up essentially all of the majority precincts to the north of Denver, and no more. The fit was pretty perfect. The Hispanics to the north are in the highest concentration. I tried not to split municipalities, so that meant either all of Aurora had to go into CO-07 or none of it. And I preferred that the Denver CD break into but one additional county.  Anyway, the Denver CD cannot but get a point of two higher in Hispanics (that would be the cut into Aurora which I don't think is appropriate unless mandated by the VRA, and it isn't), without breaking every other reasonable map drawing rule in the book.

The Dems no doubt would want to put these northern precincts into CO-07, thereby diluting and splitting up the Hispanic vote. The Hispanics want an erose 39% Hispanic CD. Neither is appropriate. As a judge I would blow both claims away. My map is fair in my opinion. It is what I would draw as a judge. I drew it without looking at the partisan numbers. That only happened after the fact.

Splitting Aurora is a valid concern, I guess, but to me going east on Colfax Avenue makes a lot of sense. Wasn't the current map drawn by the courts? I doubt they would change things much, so they might just continue south. Of course more territory outside Denver is needed this time around than last time, so we shall see. Without an erose map going into Weld County, or something even worse, you cannot draw a true Hispanic influence district. So this map just seems neither here nor there.

And I don't know how much stock the courts keep with this not splitting counties non sense. Sure, it shouldn't be done in a partisan way, but extending the Denver district along Colfax Avenue, which seems to the dividing line between Arapahoe and Adams, makes perfect sense. That area has much more in common with the neighborhoods north of there in the appendage of the city, as well as the areas just south of it in Aurora, than it does with the cities to the north of the city of Denver proper.

Edit: Not to mention the last court drawn map didn't have any qualms about splitting counties.

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Here's how you draw a Hispanic influence district in Denver and it's certainly not erose. The only city I split in Adams county seems to be Thornton. I just picked the most Hispanic areas in Jefferson county which is basically a continuation of Denver's Hispanic community anyway. I don't see how you leave them out if trying to draw a Hispanic influence district. 41.4% VAP. Not bad actually.

Of course there is one certain reason you won't like this map, but you can't have your cake and eat it too. The Hispanic areas of Denver have to be split from the white areas to draw a proper Hispanic influence map. It just has to be done. Or else fuggedaboutit!

I mean come one, your 7th is 23% VAP Hispanic and your 1st is 30% VAP. How much more of an influence district is that?

BTW, I doubt the map I drew will be drawn. I think the map will remain similar to what it is now.

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What do you guys think about this? The 7th picks up the rest of Denver, Aurora and most of southern Arapahoe County. A few of those cities southeast of Aurora, as well as eastern Arapahoe County is put in the 6th. The 6th picks up most of Jefferson County except for Arvada and Westminster. The 4th picks up Arvada, Westminster, Bloomfield and the rest of Adams County. Then I picked up all of Weld County. I still had about 80,000 people left to put in, so I picked up Louisville and Lafayette in Boulder County but stayed clear of Boulder. Unfortunately I had to split Longmont. That district is 53.7-46.3 Republican. The 6th is 59.8-40.2 Republican. The 7th is 58.3-41.7 Democrat. I don't think it's an unreasonable map, if Hispanics can convince the judge they need an influence district.

Ok, I changed things around a bit so I didn't have a district from the northeast corner to the northwest corner of Colorado. I added in rural areas to the 4th instead of suburban Boulder County. It's 57.8-42.2 Republican now. So we have basically a 4-3 Republican map....just like now. Though 53% Republican should be enough for a Republican to win, it would be just a lean Republican instead of a solid Republican district. Consequently, the Democratic 2nd district goes from 54.5% Dem to about 56% Dem.

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Here you go. Only the 3rd hasn't been drawn yet. And it will be 55.3-44.7 Republican.

Since you didn't ask, in 1900 the 1st district was Arapahoe, Washington, Yuma, Phillips, Sedgwick, Logan, Morgan, Weld, Larimer, Boulder, Jefferson, Park, Lake.

Arapahoe is the original county in Colorado when it was in Kansas Territory (east of the Rockies, south of Nebraska.  As a territory, Arapahoe County included what is now Adams and Arapahoe from their western boundary to the Kansas line, including Denver which was the county seat.  Washington and Yuma were originally north of that area.  When Denver was created as a city and county around 1900, Adams and Arapahoe were split, and the east parts were truncated (I'd have to check the order of events).  Part of the reason for the unequal split between Adams and Arapahoe is that Colfax is just south of Downtown Denver, but also that Adams is 3 townships wide (18 miles) and Arapahoe is 2 (12 miles).

The interesting part of the split is that Gilpin and Clear Creek were in District 2, but Lake was in District 1, connected by Park County over Mosquito Pass (there is never anything new under the sun).

Beginning in 1902, Colorado's 3rd representative was elected at large, and in 1912, two representatives were elected at large.  4 districts were first used in 1914.

In 1960, CO-4 was Jackson, Grand, Summit, Park, Chaffee, Gunnison, Hinsdale, Archuleta and points west, so it was not quite the Continental Divide.  CO-2 was Douglas, Elbert, Lincoln, and Cheyenne and points north.  This was based on the 1921 apportionment.

The original 4 district plan had Gilpin, Clear Creek, Jefferson and Park in CO-3, and El Paso in CO-2.  So CO-3 had more of a Front Range (mountains) flavor and CO-2 was more plains.

In 1920, the district relative share of the population was:

CO-1 1.09
CO-2 1.22
CO-3 1.10
CO-4 0.59

By 1960 it was:

CO-1 1.13
CO-2 1.49
CO-3 0.94
CO-4 0.45

In April 1964, a special session was called to do congressional reapportionment (this was only two months after Wesberry v Sanders, so I don't know if there was any litigation involved or not.  There was with regard to legislative redistricting, and there was a 2nd special session in July for the legislature.

The goal of the legislature was to keep districts within 15% and not split any counties or cities (which appears to translate to: we can keep Denver whole if we set our standard at 15%, and it just so happens that the 4-county suburban ring plus Gilpin and Clear Creek is almost perfect, and we can make the other two districts almost perfect).

I had misremembered the original modification to 4 districts.

The San Luis Valley (minus Costilla for some unknown reason) was switched to CO-4 along with Larimer, Weld, Morgan, Logan, Phillips, Sedgwick in the Lower Platte Valley.  CO-3 went north to include Douglas, Elbert, Washington, Yuma.

CO-1  1.13
CO-2  1.001
CO-3  0.95
CO-4  0.93

So the change was to shift the northern area to the CO-4.  This make sense from a simple population balancing (move area of excess to area of deficit).  There could have been political reasons.  CO-1 and CO-4 had long time Democrats who had worked themselves up in the committee structure.

Democrats took all 4 seats in 1964, though that was more to do with LBJ-Goldwater than redistricting (the Democrats would later knock them both in primaries over the Viet Nam war, in 1970 in CO-1, and in 1972 in CO-4).

I found some historical maps.

http://coloradopols.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=15525

Colorado got its 5th district after the 1970 census.   The districts are rotated clockwise to make room for the 5th district south of Denver and including Colorado Springs.  This pushes CO-3 to the west and brings more of CO-4 to northern Colorado.  Ir was this shift that would have helped defeat Aspinall in the primary.

CO-2 may have included a bit of Denver - by that time more exact population requirement meant splitting counties.  The longtime Republican Congressman was from Boulder and would have felt relatively safe.  He lost in 1974, in the Watergate election, plus the 18 YO vote and ease of registering based on campus residence.

After 1980 Colorado got its 6th representative.  You almost are forced to put new districts in the Denver area because there is more population to contribute to a new district.  But adding CO-6 forced CO-5 to move south and southwest, and also up into Jefferson which forced CO-2 more into Adams, which meant that CO-4 would need some population in eastern plains, and CO-3 rotates up to the NW corner of the state.

With no new representative in 1990, CO-3 needed to creep back to the east.

After 2000, the 7the district was added, centered in Adams that is still more of a connector.  CO-4 took Longmont, and so CO-2 was forced to pick up some population which put it over the divide.  CO-5 moved back to look more like 1980 but completely out of the Denver area. and CO-3 then took a bit more of its old territory south of Pueblo.

Pueblo is the only real industrial city in Colorado because of its former steel industry.  Denver had more industry but it was a smaller portion of the economy.  So it would have links to the south in the Walsenburg and Trinidad areas where the coal for the steel was mined (I'm not sure where the iron ore came from - perhaps this is why there is no steel mill anymore).  Pueblo is also further east than any city, at a lower elevation, further south, and along a river which made it more suitable for agriculture (irrigated and a longer growing season).  So like Greeley it was more of an agricultural center.  These would attract Hispanic farm workers and also in the steel mill, so that Pueblo has a significant Hispanic population plus ties to southern Colorado.

My point of view, and it would be as a judge, is that there is no legal or other justification to break jurisdictional boundaries to up the Hispanic percentage by a few points. It's meaningless. But upping it within the constraints of jurisdictional boundaries, without tearing up too much the existing map, does make some sense. It also makes CO-07 a super competitive CD, which is a bonus, but an accident. I guess as a judge you would do it differently (you don't hew to jurisdictional boundaries, unlike the previous judge who did make that attempt), which is OK, but not what he did or I would do. Clearly Hispanic percentages were not in play 10 years ago, or if they were, the judge blew the Hispanics off. I view my map as a sensible compromise which hews to the metrics of what is a reasonable non partisan map - respecting jurisdictional boundaries, compactness, communities of interest, and so forth.

So I so rule. :)

I agree with Sam. The current map is court-drawn already, so there's no reason to expect them to make any radical changes.

I never realized how inaccessible those ski counties are from Boulder before looking at a map. You'd have to take some very odd and obscure routes to get from Boulder to Eagle without crossing through another district. But they are similar demographically enough for this to not really offend anyone.

I like it a lot.  Also like 1970 all over again.

http://coloradopols.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=15525

Thanks, especially for the link. What I see in my plan is somewhat a return the 1990's plan, but with a seventh district. That is what would allow CD 3 to retreat west from Pueblo. I also note that my El Paso-Douglas link shows up in the 70's-90's as well.

District judge goes with the Democrats' map. (http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_19310668)

Unfortunate but not surprising.

Did the court have to pick one map or the other, rather than drawing its own?  If not, this is pretty shocking that a court would find a map drawn by a party the most appropriate.

The article says the 6th is now a tossup but from the map it looks like a clear Democratic leaning district. The 3rd also appears a pure toss up now.

Someone have the figures?

FWIW, Wasserman is skeptical about how much of a win for the Democrats the adopted map is.

Since the 2002 map was considered favorable to Dems, it's hard to see a remap being a big win. Although moving 4th from kinda sorta let's pretend it's competitive to safe R is good for Dems.

DKE has tentative Obama numbers on the new districts, with the old numbers in parentheses:

CO-01: 71 (74)
CO-02: 61 (64)
CO-03: 48 (47)
CO-04: 42 (49)
CO-05: 40 (40)
CO-06: 54 (46)
CO-07: 57 (59)

3rd district appears to be ~49.9% McCain, down from 50.5%.

It's impossible to tell from that map what they added to the 1st district, the 2nd has clearly been unpacked quite a bit to ~60.4% Obama. Or just about still strong enough to be safe.

Ah, thanks Johnny!

Hmmm... doesn't look Democratic enough to consider Coffman a goner. No need to update the scoreboard.

I agree. I don't see it as a terribly great map.

I think the premonitions about Coffman being especially vulnerable are overrated. Yes, his seat is 7 points more Democratic, but he seems to be very personally popular. I can see it flipping in a open-seat contest, but not with Coffman.

The 3rd is only a point or two swingier, but nothing substantial.

Well, I guess this map is at least better than the Republicans'...

Well, they needed to draw a map a judge might be convinced to implement.

I've looked this up; it appears that Colorado courts are allowed to pick between plans OR make a new map entirely, but I think there may be some sort of limit, either statutory or maybe just through precedent, regarding when a judge can throw out existing plans.

Looking at the cases from the last few decades, the only time the CO courts didn't just pick between plans was in 1992, when the State Supreme Court appointed a special master to make a plan when the Democratic Governor kept vetoing the GOP legislature's proposals.

A Republican seat going from R+8 to EVEN is good for Democrats, it gives them somewhere else to be competitive. The seat is in an area that is trending bluer, rather Coffman is unstoppable forever is not written in the stars and will remain to be seen.

Tipton also is hardly a lock for 2012 in co-3

Just as true before redistricting, though.

I kinda like this map.... it creates 2 swing districts in the Denver area. One is a pure tossup and one is a Democratic leaning. And there is a Republican leaning swing district in the 3rd. The 5th and 4th are safe Republican and the 1st and 2nd are safe Dem.

Does anyone know if all of Highlands Ranch is in the 6th? It looks like at least part of it is.

The first Democratic map split Colorado Springs and combined the GOP section with Highlands Ranch. By comparison, this map is not terrible.

Right. Why settle for 3+1 when you can have 5?

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1st 72.5, 2nd 58.9, 3rd 55.6, 4th 34.3, 5th 42.0, 6th 57.1, 7th 57.0 Obama.

I'm sure it could be optimized further.

Zoom in on the Denver area, please.

That's a really competitive map! (sarcasm) Welcome to Colofornia, looks like I'm moving out of Denver (LA east) in a couple of years. Enough of this crap the state has become.

I assume the court would have rejected such a map.

Quite so.

Improved; carved up Denver.

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Also, now with closeup.

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1st 60.8%, 2nd 61.4%, 3rd 56.9%, 6th 62.1%, 7th 61.2% Obama
4th 62.4%, 5th 61.0% McCain

4th district is roadlinked by Route 40 and State Highway 14 except within Steamboat Springs city limits.

Better than Texas!

It's a bit silly to move out of a state just because its congressional delegation isn't what you'd prefer, no?

You would have had to pick up stakes from both your domiciles a long time ago. ;) Ole Georgia and Lousianna just ain't what it used to be. :P

Colorado high court rejects the new map for legislative districts. Back to the drawing boards.

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_19342272 (http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_19342272)

One would hope this silences conservatives' cries that the Colorado courts are biased towards the Democrats with stuff like this; only two of the five Democratic appointees on the court dissented.

Given that the Colorado Constitution reads in part:


It is hard to conclude that anything other than bias drove two Democratic appointees to attempt to strike down their own Constitution. Two Democratic appointee could not go that far. The Republican appointees adhered to the Constitution.

Does that Dem map (http://photos.denverpost.com/mediacenter/projects/new_zones/) make CO-02 kind of marginal?  And CO-07 looks like it moves a couple of points in the Pubbie direction. But yes, CO-06 moves 9 points in the Dem direction. The ying and the yang. :P

Still, the Dems were kind of gutsy perhaps?  Things might go quite wrong with their little plans, no?

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Boulder has very high Independent registration. Don't be fooled; they all vote straight-ticket Democrat (and are probably registered Independent because the Democrats aren't liberal enough). CO-02 is still extremely safe. I am a little curious on the Longmont/Loveland decision. Loveland is a lot more Republican than Longmont (which is around 55% Obama while Loveland is more like 55% McCain), yet they put Longmont in the Republican district and Loveland in the Democratic district. Nothing like inertia, I guess.

It does move CO-07 a couple of points towards the GOP, but Perlmutter is quite safe and personally popular, and that area is trending Democratic regardless.

You don't think the judge chose this plan precisely because it makes so many districts swingable? Or do you think the judge is in the pockets of the Dems? That's kind of ridiculous considering your hopes and dreams about what happens in Arizona, with a Republican judge stepping in as the knight in shining armor to make everything alright.

BTW, CO-2 becomes something like 60-61% Obama, so it's not really marginal unless the congressman is an idiot that deserves to be thrown out. It has already been worked out and posted earlier in the thread. So I wouldn't say that is a marginal district. CO-7 most certainly is, and CO-3 stays about the same. Those two lean the opposite way of course, but still competitive. CO-6 is a dead even swing district, though should be fine with Coffman? I wouldn't have drawn this map, but I'm actually fine with it until I see what the Republican response was. Didn't the judge have to choose between maps?

OK. I think as to Longmont, the speculation is that some Dem lives there who wants to challenge the Pub in CO-04.  I am not sure where I read that - maybe on this thread. :)

Sbane, I think the judge had to pick one of the plans, and superficially, the Dem plan looks better than the Pub plan to me, which I didn't like much. I am not sure the judge emphasized competition in his ruling. And at least CO-07 got a bit more competitive too, and I suspect CO-06 still leans a tad Pubbie no?  Do you know the McCain percentage there?

Yes, Longmont was put in the 4th because the representative from there wants to run in the 4th. The most egregious part about the map is the choice of what was put in the Denver district. Other than that it creates a nice and competitive map that mostly sticks to communities of interests. I wonder what the hispanic % is in that 7th district and Aurora isn't split in the 6th.

Edit: CO-6 is 54% Obama, so probably right about the state average or a little more Republican. I think on DKE they also posted the "average" numbers and there it was almost as Republican as the 3rd. Definitely the sort of district that would like Obama more than generic Dem.

Here we go:
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/1035111/43907765#c339

Anyway, here's a Democratic gerrymander that goes way above and beyond Lewis's efforts (although for only a few more Democratic points in some seats):

CO-01: 60-37 Obama
CO-02: 63-34 Obama
CO-03: 58-39 Obama
CO-04: 34-63 McCain
CO-05: 36-62 McCain
CO-06: 60-37 Obama
CO-07: 62-35 Obama

I also took into account some other pressures that would exist on the Democrats if they did split Denver. CO-07 is 37% Hispanic (32% Hispanic VAP), not the highest that could be achieved in the Denver area but still quite concentrated. Additionally, CO-06 concentrates the black vote and the remaining Hispanic vote to be 25% Hispanic and 13% black, though still 52% white (on VAP, 57% white, 13% black, 21% Hispanic). As the remaining whites in the district are fairly Republican, this is a pretty decent minority opportunity seat. As a result, whites in the Denver area are packed into CO-01, which is 78% white (81% on VAP).

Maps follow.

State:

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Colorado Springs and Pueblo:

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Denver area:

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Fort Collins and Greeley:

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I don't understand the whole point of making CO-06 and CO-07 competitive when it's clearly a favor for the DEM, or will trend their way in the future.  Don't you think it would be fair to make CO-06 lean REP or something.

CO-06 does not at all favor the Democrats. It's marginal.

Consider. Colorado is more Democratic (barely) than the nation as a whole. There are, on this map, two solidly Democratic seats (CO-01 and CO-02), two solidly Republican seats (CO-04 and CO-05), one lean Republican seat (CO-03), one lean Democratic seat (CO-07) and one marginal seat (CO-06). That's pretty close to the "appropriate" result. If CO-06 leaned towards the Republicans, the map would be biased towards the Republicans as it would produce more Republican than Democratic seats despite the state being marginally more Democratic than Republican.

Colorado redistricting discriminates against women! OMG!

http://www.coloradopeakpolitics.com/

If the Colorado Supreme Court upholds the maps they will be endorsing a destruction of the hard fought gains Republican women have made in legislative representation. They will be, effectively, endorsing the disenfranchisement of conservative women in Colorado.

The maps purposefully put the highest ranking Republican women in the Legislature into the same districts as fellow Republicans, setting up a scenario that could see a significant reduction not only in GOP women legislators, but the seniority of incumbent female legislators.

http://www.coloradopols.com/diary/17185/laura-bradfords-threeday-weekend-from-hell

If this happened could the Dems do a new redistricting map on their own as the one for 2012 was court drawn?

The Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that Colorado's constitution bans redistricting outside the x1-x2 cycle (in response to Republicans trying it). Whether it would be theoretically possible this spring, I have no idea. Would require some research.
Doubt it would happen even if it might, though.

The 2001 redistricting was done by a court.  In 2001, the two houses of the legislature deadlocked.  The Republican majority in the House wanted a reasonable plan.  The Democratic majority in the Senate wanted to split Denver.   The Senate refused to even appoint conferees, because they knew that they would lose votes.

So it ended up in a district court.   The two sides presented their plans.  The judge tossed the Democrat plan that split Denver.  Then took the Republican plan, and let the Democrats tweak CD-7.  He described a community of interest for each district but 7, and said it didn't have one, but that it was politically balanced.  He had no idea that it was not an interim plan.  The Supreme Court reviewed it, and had no idea it was not an interim plan.

After the Republicans gained control of the legislature in 2002, they redistricted.  The Supreme Court then came up with a novel interpretation of the Constitution.

The original constitution had said that Colorado's single representative should be elected at large, and that when it was apportioned additional representatives they should be elected from districts drawn by the legislature.  That is, it simply said congressmen should be elected from single member districts.  "when" meant the instance of additional representatives, and not the instant it occurred.  It was describing the manner of election, not the process of drawing districts.

When Colorado was apportioned its 2nd representative in 1892, Colorado was divided into 2 districts.   When Colorado was apportioned its 3rd representative in 1902, he was elected at large.  When Colorado was apportioned a 4th representative in 1912, two were elected at large.  And then for 1914, 4 districts were created (somewhat malapportioned because the Western Slope formed one district).   A couple years later the 4 districts were tweaked.

And then they were left unchanged until after Wesberry v Sanders.  When the 5th and 6th representatives were added there was litigation and eventually districts were created.   Somewhere along the line, a cleanup of the Constitution had removed the original provision for a single at-large member.

So the Constitution had not really been followed; and if interpreted like the Supreme Court did, would mean that there was no legislative authority to redistrict after a Census, but only after an increased apportionment.  Perhaps the legislature had no authority under the Colorado constitution to even consider redistricting.

The Supreme Court also ruled that a district court was part of the legislature, and wasn't simply drawing an interim plan so lawful elections could be held.  If the court was exercising legislative authority in 2001, perhaps it did not have that authority in 2011.  Only a federal court could draw the lines.

There is an issue whether a state constitution may restrict the authority of a state legislature to prescribe the manner of election of representatives.  The federal constitution grants the authority to the legislature, rather than to the State.   This is currently being litigated in Florida.

I doubt that a 32:1:32 House would undertake redistricting this year.